


Vessel

by herwhiteknight



Series: 365 Days of Sarah/Cosima [5]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Cosima is some kind of Space Entity, F/F, Gen, Spiritual, Stars, i dunno what else to tag it as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8127542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herwhiteknight/pseuds/herwhiteknight
Summary: Cosima has existed amongst the stars for as long as she can remember and she's never felt lonely. Until she discovers that she can communicate with humans. Two humans in particular; a single mother and her little girl.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Day 6 of 365
> 
> Prompt: Vessel

Cosima likes to watch the people on the earth. The way she imagines that they like to watch her. Well, not her, exactly. Her friends. The humans down below, they’d point upwards, towards Cosima’s home and say, “Look, there’s the Big Dipper.” And they’d dip their arms and crane their necks to trace the pattern.

Cosima had never even imagined leaving the cosmos. For as long as she’d been aware, space was where she’d existed. If her affinity to earth had been because of a previous existence down on its surface, her memories of the place had been wiped clean. Which was totally fine, Cosima reasoned. Because existing in space, amongst the stars, that was what she knew. She knew that space was warm. And friendly. And it was home.

Until a young, single mother bought a telescope for her daughter who was barely old enough to walk.

Cosima had never been able to hear distinct words or sentences before. Different emotions, high or low, tonal inflections, sure. And Cosima was pretty good at reading facial expressions too. But never before had she been able to hear words.

“See Kira? Do you see them?” the young mother’s voice encouraged brightly, her hand on her daughter’s back as the little girl grasps the neck of the telescope with two chubby little hands. “Do you see how bright they are?”

Space never seemed more quiet. The stars, the comets, the meteors – each had their own note, their own song, creating music – a symphony. But the noise was suddenly missing a melody.

“Do you see them? How bright they are?”

Space suddenly never seemed more cold. More constricting. Cosima had never craved a human’s touch before, not for as long as she had existed in the void. Logic told her that she’d either freeze them to death or burn them alive. But something, some little tiny distant voice, like the song of Pluto, told her that the woman and child… that they were a supernova unto themselves.

Drifting had become an easy part of Cosima’s life. She loved the endless, empty seconds of soundless thought and stars. She didn’t have a _form,_ not technically, and thus didn’t float, exactly. But she could go places. She could feel that she was _elsewhere,_ but she never actually travelled there. She drifted more through existence, rather than distance. But never before had she wanted to stay in one place than when she had heard the little girl’s voice joining her mother’s for the first time.

“There’s something alive up there, mummy.”

If Cosima hadn’t been blown away by how innocent _and_ articulate the little girl – Kira – sounded, her scientific brain would have inserted some fact about how the stars seen by the human eye are actually dead by the time their light reaches the planet’s surface. Actually dead like Cosima was. Or used to be. She existed.. just not by any normal definition of the word.

Apparently Kira didn’t have a normal definition either. “I can hear someone talking.”

“What do you mean baby?” the mother asked in confusion. A confusion that Cosima shared. She hadn’t spoken in so long. She wasn’t even sure if she even still _could._

“There’s somebody up there,” Kira whispered, her tiny little words carrying through the vacuum of the atmosphere.

“Up there?” Mother asked, her confusion turning into slight nerves. “Baby, what are you-?”

“There,” Kira pointed. And even though Cosima wasn’t in one particular place or the other, she felt like she was being pointed right at. “She sounds so pretty.”

“She…?” The concern became more pronounced.

A new voice entered the scene. Or, rather, a new inflection, a new tone. The woman that it belonged to appeared at the door of the house, light spilling into the small backyard. The older woman made a gesture, a grin appearing on her face as Kira complained.

“But there’s something big up there! I was just telling mummy! A few more minutes, please?” Kira pleaded, grabbing her mother’s hand and glancing between her mum and the older woman.

“We’ll be in in a few minutes, S,” Mother squeezed Kira’s hand, “Wont we, monkey?” The girl nodded enthusiastically and the older woman, “S”, just shook her head, bemused, and went back inside, shadows falling over the yard once more.

Cosima hadn’t ever tried talking before – she never had a need to. But… Kira had said she could hear her… how she sounded. _Pretty,_ Cosima marvelled, feeling like a million tiny sunbursts. Nervously, she tried making her own melody to match the frequency of the little family beneath her, “What’s your mother’s name, sweetheart?” Her voice vibrated throughout the space before her, stars shifting and skittering around her at the sound. _I… I have a voice,_ Cosima felt the universe expand around her as she breathed in wonder.

“She’s talking again mummy!” Kira cried jubilantly, tugging on her mother’s arm so that she could look through the telescope where Kira at somehow pointed it _at_ Cosima. “She wants to know your name,” Kira dropped her voice into a reverent whisper, like communicating with Cosima was some kind of otherworldly secret. Which, well, it really kind of was.

“Right, this… _thing_ that’s alive wants to know _my_ name,” was the sceptical reply, “Baby, I think we should go back in now, yeah? It’s almost your bed time.”

“Thing?!” Cosima huffed, stars flaring around her in her indignation. “I’ll have you know that _whatever_ I am, I am _much_ bigger than your simple description of a _thing._ ”

On the ground, Kira gaped and pointed to the sky to where Cosima was. “Look mummy… the _stars.”_

As Cosima’s ire faded, so did the stars glow around her revert back to their natural state. But they had brightened just long enough for Kira’s mom to catch sight of the phenomenon. Her jaw hanging open and her grip tightening around Kira’s hand in fear, “Uh.. m'names Sarah… okay? Whoever or _whatever_ you are, if you’re out for like, some kind of revenge with, like, a natural disaster or some shite, could y'maybe just… let us live?”

Kira started giggling at her mother’s panic. “She doesn’t want to hurt you!”

“That’s like, the _last_ thing on my mind Sarah,” Cosima affirmed, and Sarah yelped.

“Shite! What was that, who said that – _where_ are-?”

Cosima stilled as she watched Sarah whirl around in the backyard, her death grip on Kira’s hand the only thing keeping her from falling over. “You can hear me too?” she asked in quiet awe.

“God, what- _is_ that?!” Sarah hissed, pawing at her ear. “Like some hum or a buzz or some shite, god it’s-”

“It’s her!” Kira said firmly, grabbing her other hand to get her to stop flailing. “You should ask her her name mummy! She knows yours now!”

“Ask _her_? This _thing_ that’s just.. up in space?! That bloody made the bloody stars go bloody nuts?!” Sarah exclaimed, shaking her head violently, turning around, “No, okay. We’re going to bed right now monkey, c'mon, let’s go.”

Kira protested, but realized that her mother’s panic was not to be reasoned with. Just as they were nearing the house, Kira glanced right up at the sky, right at Cosima and simply whispered, “Please.”

Knowing that there was a possibility that Cosima might never be able to hear human voices again, much less communicate in _some way,_ Cosima mustered up her concentration, gathered the energy from the stars and directed a single melody in Sarah’s direction, “My name is Cosima.”

Sarah stopped with one foot on the step of the deck. Kira, a couple steps in front of her, bounced on her toes and stared at her mom in glee. “Did you hear her?” she whispered yet again. And pointed once more. “See? There.”

“I dunno what I heard,” Sarah shrugged her shoulders, as if to shake off the loud, staticky hum that had reverberated down into her very soul. “We’re both just tired, yeah monkey? C'mon, let’s go inside.”

Kira’s face dropped as Sarah ushered her inside. Cosima felt her own being drop, the stars around her winking slowly, their song slowing into something more melancholy. She was just about to drift away, to watch the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean, when Sarah turned around, gazing blankly into the sky above her eyes.

“I dunno who or _what_ you are,” she stated, shaking her head once and rolling her eyes at how ridiculous she sounded. “But you make my daughter happy. And life’s been hard for her, y'know? After she lost her dad. So… if, like, if you can stay or – bloody hell. It’s the _sky,_ you bloody idiot,” she shook her head once more, “ _Nothing’s_ up there, you silly tit. Just go to bed.”

Cosima watched once more as Sarah turned and headed back into the house, shutting the door behind her with finality this time. And, despite Sarah’s disbelief, Cosima couldn’t help but bring the stars around her into a brighter glow as she envisioned the sunrise, and crossed the world.

If she had stayed a moment longer, she would have seen a little face peeking through the curtains of her bedroom window, tiny hands splayed against the glass, curious eyes still scanning the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Artwork for this piece done by modelcitizenthespian! I don't know how to insert hyperlinks, so here it is;
> 
> http://modelcitizenthespian.tumblr.com/post/158239361521/sarah-and-kira-stargazing-for-punk-rock-sciences


End file.
